Closer Tabs Must Be Kept On Playoff Officiating

It’s not the NBA playoffs without a little bit of controversy, and finally it seems we have some.Tuesday’s Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals provided the drama, as the Spurs and Lakers played down to the wire before San Antonio got the ball with 2.1 seconds left and a 93-91 deficit.San Antonio’s Brent Barry caught an inbound pass beyond the 3-point line, faked Los Angeles’s Derek Fisher into the air, and then took a bump as he tried to dribble around him. No foul was called, and Barry missed badly on a wild 3-point attempt at the buzzer.Though the Spurs were incredibly gracious in the aftermath, even going so far as to say they didn’t think the play merited a foul call, this was clearly a foul. Fisher landed on Barry’s body as he came down, and severely impeded what would have been a wide open look at a game-winning 3-pointer for one of the best shooters in league history.Since Barry erred by not going up immediately, it would have been a two-shot foul and not three shots (San Antonio was in the bonus). As such, it cost them about a one-in-three chance of winning — Barry, an 82.1% career foul shooter, had a 67.4% chance of hitting both to tie the game, and then the Spurs had a 50-50 shot at winning in OT from there.The league’s belated statement on Wednesday night that the refs blew the call probably doesn’t provide the Spurs much solace.But it does, at least, represent the first tangible evidence of increased accountability and openness in the wake of the betting scandal involving disgraced former ref Tim Donaghy last summer. Much ado was made of this before the summer, but once the games started, it seemed to be business as usual, and the NBA’s secretive instincts regarding its officiating took over.While we’re talking about officiating, though, we need to pull the lens back a bit and look at a much bigger swath than just one call at the conclusion of one game. The league says the NBA has the best refs in sports and I believe them, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. This season’s playoffs have laid bare some of those potential areas.Consider, for instance, that there were actually two blown calls in the final seconds of Game 4. Moments earlier, a shot by Fisher at the end of the shot clock grazed the rim before being knocked out of bounds by the Spurs. This should have given the Lakers a new shot clock with only five seconds to play, which would have forced the Spurs to foul immediately and, if the Lakers converted, put them up four and made everything that happened with Barry a moot point.Instead, the zebras ruled Fisher’s shot an air ball, leaving L.A. with only two seconds to shoot. Kobe Bryant forced up a jumper off the inbound pass that missed badly, and the Spurs had their last chance at an equalizer.Pull the camera back more and ask another question: Why was Joey Crawford on the floor? He was the lead official in Game 4, and he was the one who took a long look at Fisher’s foul and declined to blow his whistle.His no-call sent conspiracy theorists into a frenzy, as the Spurs and Crawford have a notorious history dating back to a game at the end of the regular season a year ago, when Crawford challenged Tim Duncan to a fight before throwing him out. The league suspended Crawford for the rest of the season for that.In Game 5 of the Hornets-Spurs series, Crawford and the Spurs had more testy exchanges — most notably an argument with San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich that ended with Crawford pointing his finger in Popovich’s chest and Popovich having to be restrained from decapitating him … even though it was Crawford who had blown the call (a delay-of-game warning given to both teams that should have only been given to the Hornets).The league will tell you that a pool of the league’s top 20 or so officials are assigned to work the conference finals, so the Spurs were bound to see Crawford at some point. Which is fine — except for the little dilemma of how Crawford qualified for this honor.So the guy who you suspended for his cantankerous behavior is one of the best? Really? Even after he misbehaved so badly in that second-round game in New Orleans that some of us in the press room were wondering if he’d be suspended again? Doesn’t exactly support the best-refs-in-the-world argument, does it?Pull back for the broader view yet again, and more questions come up. Why has there been such a huge disparity in free-throw attempts between home and road teams during the postseason? Shouldn’t the refs be largely immune to the whims of the home crowd?Or, for another matter, why has there been such an uneven standard applied to flagrant foul calls? The Washington Wizards were allowed to do anything short of murder against LeBron James in the first round without a flagrant call, but the league seemed to overreact to that perception in Round 2 and gave them out like Halloween candy.Now, nobody’s sure what the rules are. In Wednesday’s Game 5 of the Boston-Detroit series, Boston’s P.J. Brown put his hands straight up in the air to defend a lob to Jason Maxiell and received a flagrant — but Paul Pierce tackled Chauncey Billups on a fast break and didn’t.Like I said, these are the best refs in the world. But the truth is, they have to be. The nature of the best is that because refs have such an impact on the game, fans will inevitably develop conspiracy theories about whom the league is favoring and why. That’s especially true this year, with the league openly salivating over a ratings-friendly Lakers-Celtics Finals and a ratings-killing Spurs-Pistons tilt looming as the alternative.As a result, the league needs to be more open and honest about mistakes than ever, and the officiating has to be of a higher standard than ever. On both counts, it appears substantial room for improvement remains.jhollinger@nysun.com

Closer Tabs Must Be Kept On Playoff Officiating

Closer Tabs Must Be Kept On Playoff Officiating

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